On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:58:01 -0700, Joe Yuknas <Joe
I set up a Home Network with Comcast. I have two desktops and a laptop. I
would like to share Word documents between all three computers just as I can
now share printers. When I set up the wireless network, I selected the
appropriate box to "share printers/files" with the "Network Setup Wizard". I
use WindowsXP.
This is not specific to Word documents -- it applies to all file
types, and it's more of a Windows issue than an Office one.
First, on each computer press Windows key + Break key to open the
system properties dialog. Go to the Computer Name tab and make sure
the computers are all assigned to the same workgroup (the default is
WORKGROUP). If not, click the Change button and put in the desired
workgroup name.
You also need to make sure there is a user account on each computer
that can be used by someone on another computer. This is done through
the Control Panel > User Accounts dialog.
In Windows Explorer (the file manager program, not the browser), go to
each folder that contains files you want to share. Right-click the
folder's icon and choose Sharing. In the dialog, change the selection
from Not Shared to Shared. For a home network you can leave the
selection of people to share with as "Everyone" (in a corporate
setting you can select specific users). Repeat the same steps on all
three computers.
On any computer, you can now drill down through the icons for My
Network Places > Entire Network > Microsoft Windows Network >
WORKGROUP (or whatever you named it). You should see all three
computers listed, and under each one you should see the shared
folders.
The other thing you can do is map a drive on one computer to a shared
folder on another computer. In Windows Explorer, click Tools > Map
Network Drive. Choose a drive letter, and enter the desired share in
the form \\computer name\share name. You may need to click the link to
specify a user account and password that's valid on the computer where
the shared folder is. If you check the box for Reconnect At Login, the
mapped drive will be reestablished each time you start Windows
(provided the computer with the shared folder is running and connected
to the network). A mapped drive behaves much like a local removable
drive, such as a CD.
